Chapter 15
As Emma put down the last sheet she had read, a sudden thought hit her.
“Wait. What about the Wild Girl?” She said the words out loud. “You start off the book with her, and you haven’t mentioned her since. You’ve called the book The Wild Girl, for Pete’s sake. Where does she fit in? When is she going to come into the story?”
Now feeling annoyed and frustrated she grabbed the next chapter.
They came around a bend at the top of the hill, and MacDonald slowed the car. “There it is,” he said. “That’s Dun Akyn.”
Melrose stifled a little gasp. The castle was a veritable fortress, jutting out into the sea on a narrow promontory.
A medieval keep of high, impenetrable walls with slits for windows.
Behind it was a wood of Scots pine trees, making it truly isolated from the string of cottages that lined the little cove beyond.
From this viewpoint it reminded him of the sort of wooden castle his dad had made for him when he was a boy.
He’d never liked it much, not being the sort of child who found wars exciting and heroic.
He’d been old enough to see what the carnage of the Great War had done—a neighbour blinded by mustard gas, an uncle coming home without a leg and others not coming home at all.
MacDonald put the car into a low gear as they descended the steep hill. “You see the channel is quite narrow here,” he said. “So the journey should not have been hard for a sailing boat. Just along there is where they swim the cattle across.”
“Swim the cattle?” Melrose wondered if he’d heard right.
“Aye. Every year for hundreds of years they’ve swum the cattle across to market on the mainland. They put a rope through the nose of the first one, tie them together and lead them behind a boat. It’s quite a sight.”
“I bet it is,” Melrose said. He was taking in stone cottages with smoke curling from their chimneys, tiny cultivated fields, peat stacked and left to dry, just as it must have been for hundreds of years.
Melrose held on as the car negotiated one bend after another and tried to concentrate on the scenery.
To their right the land rose to the first outcrops of the Cuillin, sharp and black against a darkening sky.
Not incredibly tall mountains but ominous in their way.
Melrose moved uncomfortably in his seat.
Why was he here? What on earth could he achieve?
Either the suitor committed the murders and had fled somewhere safe, or his family was hiding him, presumably in a castle like this one, or Sir Henry had it done and would never confess.
It felt hopeless, and he had to stop himself from telling MacDonald to turn the car around and take him back to the ferry.
They entered the small settlement: simple whitewashed cottages. Not even a pub. Waves splashed up against a wharf where fishing nets were drying.
“Oh, there is one thing I almost forgot to mention,” MacDonald said. “I’m not sure where it fits in, or rather where she fits in, but it might be relevant.”
“She? Who are we talking about?”
“The Wild Girl,” MacDonald said.
Melrose looked sharply at him as if he suspected MacDonald was pulling his leg. “Wild Girl?”
“That’s what the villagers call her. Her mother died when she was little.
Her father is a fisherman and often out at sea, leaving the child to run wild, no proper schooling, no one to make sure her clothes are clean.
The local people have suggested that she is not entirely human, but one of the fairy folk. ”
Melrose gave a nervous chuckle. Now he was sure he was being spun a tale.
“Oh yes. Can she fly?”
“I’m deadly serious, man,” MacDonald said.
“Anyway, a few years ago the laird’s wife took pity on her and took her in.
You might say she tamed her. Educated her with her own daughter.
The girls became bosom friends and did everything together.
And now apparently she has gone missing, too.
Or rather she has vanished. Well, she might if she was half fairy, I suppose. ”
Still Melrose wasn’t sure whether this islander was having a laugh at his expense.
He’d wait until Melrose questioned the owners of the castle about a wild girl who could vanish and then he would watch them all chuckle.
Melrose was determined to tread warily and let these folks know that he might look young but he was a trained and competent member of the Criminal Investigation Department.
They left the last cottage behind as they approached the castle. MacDonald brought the car to a halt where the road ended at a small harbour, nestled into the rocks. Two fishing boats were tied up but there was no sign of life there.
“Easier to walk from here,” he said. “There are steps up to the castle. Otherwise we have to drive up and around through the wood, and there’s no guarantee the main gates won’t be locked. They were last time. Damnty nuisance.”
Melrose got out, to be met by the wind, cold and damp.
He realized that even the narrow crossing here, where the wind was funnelled between the mountains on either side, would be dangerous for a sailing boat if the weather turned nasty.
What if the deaths were just a tragic accident?
The boat had capsized because of an inexperienced sailor and an unexpected wave.
Wouldn’t it be best to leave it at that for now?
He turned up his coat collar as he felt the first raindrops, then trudged after MacDonald, who was already ascending the path up to the castle.
As they rose higher the wind hit them full in the face.
Melrose looked up at those granite walls towering above him and shivered.
What on earth would it be like, actually having to live in such a bleak and inhospitable place?
He wondered how it coloured the temperament of the people inside that granite fortress.
Once up on the promontory they followed the outer wall around to a gateway leading to the inner keep.
This gate was open and they went inside, up to a most formidable front door.
Solid oak, studded with iron, it wasn’t the type that could be breached.
MacDonald brought the knocker crashing down, turning to grin at Melrose with satisfaction at the noise it made. “That’ll wake them up if they’re asleep,” he said.
They did not have to wait long before the door was opened by an elderly man with white hair, wearing a black morning coat with tails, high starched collar and pinstriped trousers. Melrose had never met a butler before, but he had read of them in crime novels and recognized this as the real article.
“Ah, Inspector MacDonald,” the butler said in his soft Highland tones. “I see you have brought the gentleman from Glasgow with you. Please do come in. I shall inform the master that you are here.”
They stepped into a dark, cavernous hallway.
On one side a stone staircase ascended to a landing above, now bathed in gloom.
On the walls weapons and bits of armour of various shapes and sizes were displayed: pikes and shields and a wicked-looking axe.
Melrose thought it would have been a foolish person who decided to pick a fight with the Hamiltons.
Before he had time to take it all in the butler opened a door to their right.
“In here if you please, gentlemen.”
They stepped into a room that was warmed by a fire in a huge stone fireplace.
The furniture was what you might find in any household: a chintz-covered sofa, large leather armchairs, even a potted plant struggling to survive in the corner.
An ordinary, comfortable living room that might have been his parents’ if not for the tall, narrow windows set into two-foot-thick walls giving just a glimpse of the loch below.
The men remained standing, not saying anything, and soon they heard male voices echoing in that entrance hall and a man came in.
He was a commanding presence—a big, powerful man in his fifties, sporting a red beard flecked with grey.
He wore a tweed jacket and corduroy slacks like any of his crofters, but there was no mistaking that this was the laird, Sir Henry Hamilton.
“Oh, you’re back,” he said. His gaze swept over Melrose, his look one of arrogant disdain. “I thought we were supposed to be getting a homicide chappie from Glasgow.”
Melrose cleared his throat and stepped forward. “I am Inspector Melrose from the homicide squad in Glasgow,” he said. “How do you do, sir.”
“You? You’re the so-called experienced man I requested? Is this a joke? It’s my daughter’s murder we are investigating, man. Not a missing pussy cat.”
Melrose met his gaze and did not blink. “I can assure you, sir, that I have the necessary experience. I will do a thorough job for you.”
“Experience? What are you, twenty-one? How many years can you possibly have had on the force?”
“As a matter of fact it’s now almost twelve years,” he said. “Five of those with the CID.”
“Well, I am not at all satisfied,” Sir Henry said. “Bloody well disgusted. If this is the way that the Glasgow Police treat a Scottish member of Parliament then heaven help us all. I should have bypassed you and gone straight to Edinburgh, or even down to Scotland Yard.”
“We definitely have our share of murders in Glasgow,” Melrose said.
“And I have taken and passed the required courses.” He was tempted to say that he didn’t think Scotland Yard would consider the deaths of two people in an overturned sailing boat, which might turn out to be an accident, important enough to send a team to the wilds of Scotland. But wisely he stayed silent.
“I can assure you, Sir Henry, that we of the island police will be entirely at Inspector Melrose’s disposal to make sure this case is dealt with thoroughly and fairly,” MacDonald said.
“Hmmpf,” Sir Henry snorted. “A lot of help that will be. You haven’t apprehended the blaggard so far, have you?”
“Who are you talking about, Sir Henry?” Melrose asked.
“Why that Chisholm fellow,” Sir Henry bellowed.
“I invite him into my home thinking we’ve found the ideal suitor for my daughter.
And now my daughter is dead and the bugger has disappeared.
He obviously found out that my daughter was planning to run away with that no-good Communist agitator and killed them both.
Now he’s probably already on his way to South America, God rot his guts. ”
Melrose frowned. “Do you have any reason to believe that he was the one to blame for this tragedy?”
“Why else would he have disappeared?” Sir Henry snapped.
Melrose took a deep breath. “Maybe we could all sit down and talk this through, starting at the beginning. I’ve only heard snippets of what happened and why so far. I’d prefer to know all the details from you, Sir Henry.”
Without being asked he took a seat in one of the armchairs and took out his notebook.